Probability Theory - Dec 2007

*** If you aren't into Test cricket, esp. the series between Australia and India in Dec-Jan 2007, you might want to skip this post ***

Here's the 3rd day COB (aka "stumps") update: With 2 days to go (roughly 180 overs), Australia need another 10 wickets to win. India needs 493 more.

India's chances of losing are perhaps.. 99 to 1. Why 99? Because in the last 100 years or so of Test cricket, such a target has not been achieved. A better student of probability theory would put the chances at 100 to 0. I guess I'll be a C-grader if I go to high school today.

Anyway, let's look at some predictions I have - which will be wasted anyway since you'll have read this post AFTER the final results are out soon. I'll update this post once the match is over, to see how well I fared in my predictions.

My predictions:
1. Australia will achieve success level 6 (best = 10) - see "Australia's LEVELS OF SUCCESS" below
2. India will achieve success level 3 (best = 10) - see "India's LEVELS OF SUCCESS" below


Australia's LEVELS OF SUCCESS: (decreasing order)

10. Win the match by Lunch on Day 4
9. Ensure that at best, only one Indian batsman scores more than 50 runs
8. Ensure no Indian partnership exceeds 100 runs
7. Ensure that Brad Hogg gets at least 2 wickets [Note: Hogg's success is very crucial for the matches in Adelaide and Sydney]
6. Win the match by Tea on Day 4
5. Win the match by Stumps (COB) on Day 4
4. Win the match by Lunch on Day 5
3. Win the match by Tea on Day 5
2. Win the match in the last session on Day 5
1. Lose the match


India's LEVELS OF SUCCESS: (Increasing order)

1. Lose the match before lunch on Day 4
2. Drag the match past Lunch on Day 4
3. Ensure at least one partnership exceeds 50 runs
4. Drag the match past Tea on Day 4
5. Ensure at least one partnership exceeds 100 runs
6. Ensure that the opening partnership (Dravid and Jaffer) exceeds 100 runs [Note: The success of the opening partnership is very crucial to avoid a 4-0 loss to Australia in this test series]
7. Drag the match past Stumps (COB) on Day 4
8. Drag the match past Lunch on Day 5
9. Drag the match past Tea on Day 5
10. Win the match

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Ok, the match just about finished a few minutes ago. How off were my predictions?

My prediction # 1: Australia will achieve success level 6 (best = 10)
Actual result: Australia achieved success level 5 (see Note 1 below)

My prediction # 2: India will achieve success level 3 (best = 10)
Actual result: India achieved success level 4 (see Note 2 below)

Note 1: Australia did achieve the success levels 7, 8 and 9, but not # 6. So I guess my ordering of success levels was off.

Note 2: India achieved success level 4 without achieving level 3. So again, I guess my ordering of success levels was off.

BOTTOMLINE: Accounting for my own faults at ordering, perhaps Australia achieved 2 notches better than my predictions, while India was roughly at about my predictions.

My closing thoughts on the match:

• Australia did as well as ever on all of the areas - batting, bowling and fielding. While everyone did well, including their bowlers, I thought Brad Hogg was very impressive in the match - 2 wickets in each innings. He'll do well this series.

• India did well on bowling, but did badly in batting and fielding. The captaincy was somewhat ordinary as well - esp. with field placements. They could have done better.

• For the next match - I would leave the Australian side unchanged. For India, I would like to leave the side unchanged and give it another shot. However, considering the pressures on Kumble, I expect Sehwag back in the team at the expense of one of Jaffer, Dravid or Yuvraj. In such a situation, I would prefer Sehwag opening with Jaffer, with Yuvraj being dropped. My reasoning is that - Yuvraj is having difficulty even surviving 10 balls. In the 20 balls between the 2 innings, he was out at least 3 times in my opinion, and he barely survived edging at least 3-4 other deliveries.This might be hard on Yuvraj, but honestly - it doesn't look like he'll do well at all at Sydney. He is just unable to read Brad Hogg - at one point even Kumble was reading Hogg better - AND he is extremely uncomfortable with Stuart Clark's outswingers to a left-hander. On the other hand, both Dravid and Jaffer, the other weak-links in the line-up, at least read the bowlers well before surrendering tamely. I would leave the rest of the team the same for Sydney. Let's see what Kumble and Co decides.